Aaron Copland - Fanfare For The Common Man - YouTube Aaron Copland - Fanfare For The Common Man Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Nov 28, 2009 The awesome Fanfare For the Common Man by Aaron Copland. This fanfare was written on request from Eugene Goossens, conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, in response to the US entry into the Second World War. During the First World War, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra had asked British composers for a fanfare to begin each orchestral concert. It had been so successful that he thought to repeat the procedure in World War II with American composers. Goossens suggested titles like Fanfare for Soldiers, but Copland gave it the much better title Fanfare for the Common Man. The piece was premiered 12 March 1943 at income tax time, as a homage to the common man. Even though it is american, I think it should be the "official" fanfare for alle the common people in the world.

Kind of like they did the moonlanding for all mankind. This is just my personal opinion, and I mean no offence to americans for wanting to "steal" this one. Music Copyrights owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Category Fanfare for the Common Man | Music Hub | Fandom powered by Wikia Fanfare for the Common Man 17,460pages on Share Fanfare for the Common Man is a 20th-century American classical music work by American composer Aaron Copland . The piece was written in 1942 for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under conductor Eugene Goossens . It was inspired in part by a famous speech made earlier in the same year where vice president Henry A. Wallace proclaimed the dawning of the "Century of the Common Man". Several cover versions have been made and fragments of work have appeared in many subsequent US and British cultural productions, such as in the musical scores of movies Contents four french horns (in F) three trumpets (in B♭) Edit [1] [2] Henry A. Wallace whose speech proclaiming the arrival of "the century of the Common Man" inspired Copland to write the fanfare.

Copland, in his autobiography, wrote of the request: "Eugene Goossens, conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra , had written to me at the end of August about an idea he wanted to put into action for the 1942-43 concert season. During World War I he had asked British composers for a fanfare to begin each orchestral concert. It had been so successful that he thought to repeat the procedure in World War II with American composers". A total of 18 fanfares were written at Goossens' behest, but Copland's is the only one which remains in the standard repertoire. It was written in response to the US entry into the Second World War and was inspired in part by a famous 1942 speech where vice president Henry A. Wallace proclaimed the dawning of the "Century of the Common Man".

Goossens had suggested titles such as Fanfare for Soldiers, or sailors or airmen, and he wrote that "[i]t is my idea to make these fanfares stirring and significant contributions to the war effort...." Copland considered several titles including Fanfare for a Solemn Ceremony and Fanfare for Four Freedoms ; to Goossens' surprise, however, Copland titled the piece Fanfare for the Common Man. Goossen wrote "Its title is as original as its music, and I think it is so telling that it deserves a special occasion for its performance. If it is agreeable to you, we will premiere it 12 March 1943 at income tax time". Copland's reply was "I [am] all for honoring the common man at income tax time". Copland later used the fanfare as the main theme of the fourth movement of his Third Symphony (composed between 1944 - 1946.) [ edit ]On television and other media Edit The fanfare has found much use as a theme for television programs. In the United States, Emerson, Lake and Palmer 's arrangement of Fanfare for the Common Man was the opening theme song for the CBS Sports Spectacular .

In Mexico, it was the main title theme of TV Azteca TV sport program DeporTV. In Scotland, the BBC used it as the theme to their main news program Reporting Scotland in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Australian television network Seven Network used it in the 1980s and early 1990s as the theme music for Seven Sport broadcasts, and continued to use a teaser version up until 2011. An early 1980s Canadian television series called "Titans" used Fanfare as its opening theme music. In the early 1980s when Channel 0/28 (now SBS One ) would begin transmission for the night, they would use the Aaron Copland version as their opening theme. It was also used as the opening theme for the network's very first night of transmission. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Channel 3, the English language television channel operated by oil company Saudi Aramco in Dhahran, KSA, used the fanfare as their opening and closing theme. The channel broadcasted American and British television shows and films.

During the 1980s, the Nine Network televised a lifestyle program call "World of Boats" (later to be broadened and called "World of Leisure") hosted by Chris Conroy which used the Emerson, Lake and Palmer version as the theme for the program. In the mid-1990s, the piece was used as background music in United States Navy recruitment advertisements. The Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL have used it as part of a pre-game video introduction of the team before it takes to the ice since moving into the United Center in 1994. This piece was used as the postlude at the funeral for Ronald Brown , Bill Clinton 's Commerce Secretary, on April 10, 1996, at the National Cathedral . Dan Cole, a radio talk show host on KFAN (AM) , uses a Woody Herman version of this piece as the opener of his sports show, the "Common Man Progrum" [sic ]. The piece is played in its entirety but is augmented by audio clips by celebrities such as Dennis Green , Bill Clinton and Mike Tice . The piece was used during the opening ceremony of the Bullring centre, Birmingham on September 4, 2003.

The piece was played to fireworks at the closing ceremonies of New York's Shea Stadium on September 28, 2008. On November 19, 2008, it was played as the wake-up music for the shuttle crew STS-126 for mission pilot Eric A. Boe . On January 18, 2009, it was played at the beginning of We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial . It was also played at the beginning of "An American Reunion", the concert (also at the Lincoln Memorial) on the Saturday prior to the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1992. On August 28, 2010, it was used during the presentation of 3 medals at Glenn Beck's restoring honor event. Several feature films employ the piece for dramatic effect. John Williams ' original score for Saving Private Ryan draws heavily on its soundworld (though Copland's piece is not actually heard in the movie). The fanfare functioned as Jimmy King's theme in Ready to Rumble . The Bollywood film Parinda prominently features the piece as background score, including in a haunting opening depicting shots of Bombay.

On October 9, 2004, it was played as Queen Elizabeth II and her procession entered the debating chamber during the opening ceremony of the new Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh . The first three notes of the piece are coincidentally the same as the sound made by motors of the MR-73 class of cars on the Montreal Métro as they leave the station and accelerate. "Fanfare for the Common Man" was one of the musical themes for Expo 67 , which was held in Montreal. On September 21, 2012, Fanfare was played at Los Angeles International Airport as the Space Shuttle Endeavour touched down after its final flight. This section does not cite any references or sources . Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (September 2010) Copland's fanfare was used in 1977 by British rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer on the album Works Volume 1 . The track became one of the band's biggest hits when an edited version was released as a single that year. It peaked at No. 2 in the UK.

Keith Emerson had long been an admirer of Copland's Americana style, previously using Copland's Hoedown on the band's Trilogy album in 1972. An excerpt of Fanfare for the Common Man was used to open the Rolling Stones Tour of the Americas '75 , and their Tour of Europe '76 supporting their Black and Blue album. The American rock band Styx has also used the Copland piece. Their 1972 eponymous debut album opens with a suite called Movement for the Common Man. The third section of the suite, titled Fanfare for the Common Man, is loosely based on the Copland original. Additionally, the rock band Asia (which shares the drummer Carl Palmer from Emerson, Lake & Palmer) often plays a variation of "Fanfare" during their live shows. Different versions have appeared on various live Asia albums over the years as well. The Woody Herman Orchestra was known for closing their performances with a jazz rendition of Fanfare for the Common Man. It appears on the 1976 CD Woody Herman • Featuring Stan Getz Bob Dylan has also opened his shows with "Fanfare for the Common Man".

Mannheim Steamroller also has a version on its "American Spirit" album. On August 28, 2010, it was played at the beginning of Glenn Beck 's Restoring Honor rally . On January 12, 2011, the piece opened "Together We Thrive: Tucson and America", the memorial service for the victims of the 2011 Tucson shooting following the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six others. On July 19, 2011, it was played as the wake-up music for the shuttle crew of STS-135 , the final mission for the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the final overall shuttle mission. Formula 1 Theme on Rede Globo in year 70/80 in the version of ELP. English Football League Championship side, Wolverhampton Wanderers play the introduction to the fanfare before all home matches, followed by Jeff Beck's version of Hi Ho Silver Lining. The Israeli foreign affairs TV show Roim Olam used the ELP version in its opening title.

In the 1990s the fanfare began to be used to welcome the winner of the Aintree Grand National Steeplechase from the racecourse to the winner's enclosure as the timing of the piece roughly matched the time it took the winner to make the journey. When the enclosure was moved in 2010 the fanfare was used instead to announce the procession of competitors from the paddock to the course before the race. Copland: Early Music From America's Composer : NPR Grant Leighton I grew up thinking of Aaron Copland as the musical voice of America. Aaron Copland's music can be divided into the brash early pieces and the bucolic later ones. Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Getty Images Like most everyone, when I hear Copland's music, I see the majesty of the Grand Canyon: I feel my breathing expand and relax with the open skies of Colorado and Montana; I sense the calm of a clear river running through the mountains. So imagine my shock when I sneaked into a New York Philharmonic rehearsal as a teenager to discover Leonard Bernstein conducting an angular, atonal, but gripping piece by none other than Aaron Copland.

The avant-garde sounds were from Copland's Connotations, and all at once, my preconceptions about Copland flew out the window. That was a defining moment for me, because it opened my mind and ears to the multidimensionality of Copland as a composer and artist. I became fascinated with his non-American-sounding works, like Orchestral Variations, Connotations and some of his early compositions, which pre-date his interest in folk music and that signature Copland style that we know from his Appalachian Spring. When I made my subscription debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2000, it happened to coincide with the Copland centenary, and I was able to conduct Connotations, the piece I had heard so many years ago in that Bernstein rehearsal. Side One: Copland's Bold Beginnings Throughout my conducting career, I have been fascinated by composers' lesser-known sides — especially those of American composers like Copland, Barber , Bernstein and even Gershwin . Recently, I had the opportunity to record the "other" symphonies by Copland; by that, I mean those other than his well-known Symphony No. 3.

They are works of great imagination, humor and beauty, and they are rarely, if ever, heard in our concert halls. In all of these works, you can hear Copland's trademark characteristics just starting to emerge. Article continues after sponsorship Copland's first symphony was called Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. Its premiere performance — when Copland was just 25 — featured his teacher, Nadia Boulanger, as soloist with the New York Symphony. He later reworked the piece for orchestra alone, which is the version I recorded. In the symphony's opening, you can almost sense Copland searching for his voice. A more playful atmosphere highlights the second movement, and an avant-garde fugue in the style of Bartok emerges in the finale. Copland's Symphony No. 2, better known as the Short Symphony, dates from the early 1930s. The opening's spiky dance rhythms and the second movement's simple gestures would both return with a more developed sound (and stronger melodies) in later works like Appalachian Spring. Even early on, Copland loved to steal from himself. At age 22, he wrote a ballet score to a vampire story called Grohg.

Later, he turned that music into his Dance Symphony. Here, Copland mixes yearning with dissonance as an emotional tool. There's an exotic, sensual waltz and a pulsing, percussive final movement that I think of as Billy the Kid meets Jaws. To me, these early works are fascinating in that you can hear the musical seeds that will later blossom in Copland's next phase of music — so evocative of wide-open spaces and the American West. Side Two: Copland's Prairie Populism So, how did this kid who grew up in Brooklyn — the son of Russian Jewish immigrants — eventually become the voice of the great American landscape? How does he paint such strong and vivid pictures of America? And what is it about the music that evokes such clear associations? Over time, Copland developed just the right compositional techniques. Listen to the opening of his Fanfare for the Common Man: Copland uses large intervals to construct the melody, so the space between the pitches is large. He tends toward what we call perfect intervals — perfect fourths and fifths — which are devoid of dissonance. And the way he stacks up those large, perfect intervals creates a feeling of wide-open space.

Copland's imaginative orchestrations add to his ability to evoke majestic images: The power of the brass and full percussion in Fanfare is palpable. Then, in one of Copland's seminal compositions, Appalachian Spring, he brings together his playful side, his penchant for simplicity and his gift for storytelling. He weaves a pioneer tale using indigenous American tunes (the Shaker melody "The Gift to Be Simple") and folk-sounding music, which would become a hallmark of Copland's American sound. But I like to remind people that Copland was much more than the voice of the American landscape. He was the quintessential 20th-century composer: versatile, chameleon-like, avant-garde, agile and technologically savvy. He wrote music for every available medium: ballet, songs, film, theater. He even wrote the first opera for television presentation (The Tender Land). In Copland's incredible ability to constantly adapt, pivot and challenge himself, we find the spirit of possibility — and the true essence of America.

Related NPR Stories Aaron Copland : Composer's life & music | Classic FM Aaron Copland Biography Aaron Copland (1900–1990) was one of the few 'serious' 20th-century composers whose music touched the heart of the 'common man'. Life and Music Copland's musical gifts were obvious from the start. By the age of five he was inseparable from the family piano, while childhood visits to see Walter Damrosch conduct the New York Symphony and Isadora Duncan as a member of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company sparked his imagination. Copland started composing seriously after he began piano studies with Rubin Goldmark in 1917. His first published piece was The Cat and the Mouse, a Debussyian miniature for solo piano. Copland spent three years in Paris between 1921 and 1924, studying with Nadia Boulanger.

His return to New York was marked not only by such exuberant orchestral pieces as Music for the Theatre and the jazz-orientated Piano Concerto, but also a new enthusiasm for a whole range of other musical disciplines, including lecturing, concertising (as pianist), and lending enthusiastic support to the work of local music societies. By the late 1930s Copland had developed a magical sound-world that seemed to encapsulate the North American pioneering spirit. His impact on American musical culture was on a par with his friend and supporter Leonard Bernstein. The extraordinary success of El Salon Mexico ushered in a decade of intense activity which embraced many of Copland's most celebrated pieces, including Fanfare for the Common Man and three popular ballets, Billy the Kid, Rodeo and Appalachian Spring. His many awards included an Oscar for his 1948 film score to The Heiress, honorary doctorates from several universities (including our own York), and a Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for Appalachian Spring. By the time of his death in 1990, Copland was widely acknowledged to be one of the world's finest composers and musical educators. Did you know?

Copland's best known work is called Fanfare for the Common Man, and it is now used at American presidential inaugurations. National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC School You Gotta Know These 20th-Century Composers Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). He studied under Rimsky-Korsakov and completed two grand ballets for Diaghilev, The Firebird and Petrushka. His Paris premiere of The Rite of Spring (1913), however, is what inaugurated music's Modern era. A pagan story featuring polytonal music, The Rite of Spring shocked the audience so much that riots ensued, leading a stunned Stravinsky to pursue rational, "neoclassical" music, such as his Symphony of Psalms. In 1940 he moved to Hollywood, where he composed his one full-length opera, The Rake's Progress, with libretto by W.H. Auden. Late in life, he adopted the serialist, twelve-tone style of Webern, producing the abstract ballet Agon (1957). Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951).

This Austrian pioneered dodecaphony, or the twelve-tone system, which treated all parts of the chromatic scale equally. Schoenberg's early influences were Wagner and R. Strauss, as evident in his Transfigured Night (1900) for strings. Yet by 1912, with the "Sprechstimme" (halfway between singing and speaking) piece Pierrot lunaire, he broke from Romanticism and developed expressionist pieces free from key or tone. His students, especially Alban Berg and Anton Webern, further elaborated on his theories. Fleeing Nazi persecution in 1933, he moved from Berlin to Los Angeles, where he completed A Survivor from Warsaw. The first two acts of his unfinished opera, Moses und Aron, are still frequently performed. Benjamin Britten (1913-1976). Reviver of the opera in the U.K., most notably with Peter Grimes (1945), the story of a fisherman who kills two of his apprentices.

Britten broke through with Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937), a tribute to his composition teacher, and wrote incidental music for works by his friend W.H. Auden. With his companion, the tenor Peter Pears, Britten founded the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and wrote operas such as Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw, and Death in Venice. Britten's non-operatic works include The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1946) and War Requiem (1961), based on the antiwar poems of Wilfred Owen, who was killed during World War I. Aaron Copland (COPE-land) (1900-1990). At first a modernist, he was the first American student of Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1920s; there he finished his Organ Symphony and Music for the Theater.

By the 1930s, Copland turned to simple themes, especially the American West: El Salón Mexico was followed by the ballets Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring (1944), the last containing the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts." Copland's Third Symphony contained his Fanfare for the Common Man, while Lincoln Portrait featured spoken portions of the President's writings. Copland wrote several educational books, beginning with 1939's What to Listen For in Music. Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953). He wrote seven symphonies, of which the First (Classical, 1917) is the most notable. While in Chicago, he premiered the opera The Love for Three Oranges, based on Italian commedia dell'arte. Prokofiev moved to Paris in 1922, where he composed works for Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, including The Prodigal Son. In 1936 he returned to the USSR, where he completed the popular children's work Peter and the Wolf and the score for the film Alexander Nevsky.

When Stalin denounced Prokofiev as "decadent," the composer was forced to write obsequious tributes to the premier. Prokofiev survived Stalin, but only by a few hours (both died on March 5). Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975). His work was emblematic of both the Soviet regime and his attempts to survive under its oppression. Shostakovich's operas, such as The Nose (1928) and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, were well received at first--until Stalin severely criticized his work in Pravda in 1936. Fearful for his security, Shostakovich wrote several conciliatory pieces (Fifth, Seventh/Leningrad, and Twelfth Symphonies) in order to get out of trouble. He made enemies, however, with his Thirteenth Symphony (Babi Yar). Based on the Yevtushenko poem, Babi Yar condemned anti-Semitism in both Nazi Germany and the USSR. Béla Bartók (1881-1945).

A young girl singing a folk tune to her son in 1904 inspired Bartók to roam the Hungarian countryside with Zoltan Kodály, collecting peasant tunes. This influence permeated his music, including the opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle (1911) and the ballets The Wooden Prince (1916) and The Miraculous Mandarin (1919). A virtuoso pianist and an innovative composer, Bartók refused to teach composition, contributing to financial problems, especially after he fled Nazi-held Hungary for the U.S. in 1940. Bartók wrote many prominent instrumental pieces; best known are six string quartets, the educational piano piece Mikrokosmos, and Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (1936). Charles Ives (1874-1954). He learned experimentation from his father George, a local Connecticut businessman and bandleader. Ives studied music at Yale but found insurance sales more lucrative; his firm of Ives and Myrick was the largest in New York during the 1910s.

Privately, Ives composed great modern works, including the Second Piano (Concord) Sonata (with movements named after Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott, and Thoreau); and Three Places in New England (1914). His Third Symphony won Ives a Pulitzer Prize in 1947, while his song "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" was based on a Vachel Lindsay poem. Poor health ended both his insurance and music careers by 1930. Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). His Basque mother gave him an affinity for Spanish themes, as evident in Rapsodie espagnole and his most popular piece, Bolero (1928). Ravel produced Pavane for a Dead Princess while a student of Gabriel Fauré, but was frustrated when the French Conservatory overlooked him for the Prix de Rome four times. He completed the ballet Daphnis et Chloe (1912) for Diaghilev, which was followed by Mother Goose and La Valse, and also re-orchestrated Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

His health declined after a 1932 taxi accident; unsuccessful brain surgery ended his life. George Gershwin (1898-1937). Known at first for producing popular songs and musicals with his older brother Ira, Gershwin successfully melded jazz and popular music with classical forms, most famously the Rhapsody in Blue (1924), the Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra (1925), and the folk opera Porgy and Bess (1935), based on a story by DuBose Heyward. Gershwin's first major hit was 1919's "Swanee," sung by Al Jolson, and his 1931 musical Of Thee I Sing was the first to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Gershwin died of a brain tumor at age 38. John Cage (1912-1992). An American student of Arnold Schoenberg, Cage took avant-garde to a new level, and may be considered a Dada composer because he believed in aleatory, or "chance" music. His Imaginary Landscape No.

4 (1951) used twelve radios tuned to different stations; the composition depended on what was on the radio at that time. The following year's 4'33" required a pianist to sit at the piano for that length of time and then close it; audience noise and silence created the "music." Cage also invented the "prepared piano," where he attached screws, wood, rubber bands, and other items to piano strings in order to create a percussion sound. Ralph Vaughan Williams (RAIF) (1872-1958). Best known for reviving the Tudor style and folk traditions in English music, as exemplified in his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1909). Vaughan Williams completed nine symphonies, the foremost his Second (London) in 1914; other principal symphonies included the First (Sea), Third (Pastoral) and Seventh (sinfonia antarctica).

His orchestral work The Lark Ascending was based on a George Meredith poem, while Sir John in Love (1924) was a Shakespearean opera that featured the "Fantasia on Greensleeves." Hugh the Drover and The Pilgrim's Progress are other major Vaughan Williams operas. Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). A highly skilled pianist and conductor, Rachmaninoff twice turned down conductorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He failed to reap the monetary benefits of his early pieces (notably the C-Sharp Minor Prelude of 1892), because he sold them cheaply to a publisher. Treated by hypnosis in 1901, Rachmaninoff began a productive period with his Second Piano Concerto (known affectionately by Julliard students as "Rocky II") and the symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead (1909). He moved to the U.S. in 1917, after the Bolshevik Revolution. There his output decreased, though he did complete the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in 1934. This article was contributed by NAQT writer Adam Fine.

The Great American Classical Composers The Great American Classical Composers Classical Music Reviews The Great American Classical Composers United States classical music composer, Aaron Copland, famous for his works including Appalachian Spring and Fanfare for the Common Man. (1900 - 1990). Photo by Cleland Rimmer/Getty Images By Aaron Green Updated August 16, 2015. After the United States declared its independence from Great Britain, settled into its new land, and matured into a thriving nation, arts and music flourished. This is why you rarely see any American composers before the late romantic period - Americans were too busy focusing on the creation of the country! Though it would be nearly impossible to list every classical composer to have came from the United States, I've put together a brief list of some of the most celebrated American composers and YouTube links to several of their notable works. 1000+ images about Aaron Copland on Pinterest | Library of congress, Conductors and Interview Composer Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn of Lithuanian Jewish descent, on November 14, 1900.

Before emigrating from Russia to the United States, Copland's father, Harris Morris Copland, Anglicized his surname "Kaplan" to "Copland". See More Aaron Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man - Classic FM Classic FM Become a VIP Aaron Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man By the time he reached the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1931, Eugène Goossens (not to be confused with his violinist father Eugène Goossens or his conductor Grandfather Eugène Goossens) had already made his name as conductor of his own orchestra and, before that, as assistant conductor to Thomas Beecham at the Queen’s Hall Orchestra. It was only natural, some years into his tenure with Cincinnati, that his thoughts should drift to his own conducting legacy with his American band. It was for the 1942 and 1943 seasons that Goossens commissioned several prominent composers to provide concert fanfares, to be played at various subscription concerts across the two years.

Among others, Walter Piston, Paul Creston, Darius Milhaud, Virgil Thomson and Morton Gould all provided works, starting with Bernard Wagenaar’s A Fanfare for Airmen in October 1942 and ending with Fanfare for the Merchant Marine in April 1943, which was Goossens’ own effort. The fifteenth fanfare, premiered on 12 March 1943, by Copland , is the only one still in the repertoire today. Scored originally for horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba and percussion, Copland used it just three years later as the theme for the last movement of his Symphony No 3. Recommended Recording Fanfare for the Common Man | Kile Smith | composer Copland. Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra (with harp and piano) (1948) There are those who dislike speaking of greatness, either because they are uncomfortable with things that are great or with things that can be measured. But most of us acknowledge that things, people, music, and even composers can be great, and so, by just about any measure, most people would acknowledge that the great American composer is Aaron Copland.

November 14, 2015, would be his 115th birthday. His years, nicely rounded for remembering, span 1900 to 1990. They neatly illuminate his standing as the pre-eminent composer in the United States during the 20th century. All we have to do is scan a list of his works to see not only how many are continually performed, but how they have defined what is “American” in American music. Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, Rodeo, El Salón México, Old American Songs, Lincoln Portrait, the Third Symphony, Fanfare for the Common Man, film scores, and chamber works all attest to his importance as the composer above all others who would rightly be called the Dean of American Composers. The irony of the son of Jewish Lithuanian immigrants in Brooklyn becoming this bellwether of Americana has often been noted. That Copland was the most famous of the Americans who flocked to Paris for studies with Nadia Boulanger is also well known. What is not as familiar is the music he wrote even in Paris—ballet music that he worked into the Dance Symphony.

We can hear him toying with the jazz language of the ’20s in this. It’s an element that would fade, but not disappear, from his composing toolkit. Leopold Stokowski gave the first performance of it in 1931 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, on a benefit concert for out-of-work musicians. Dance Symphony is not one of his numbered symphonies, but the Short Symphony is actually No. 2. The Mexican composer/conductor Carlos Chávez gave the first performance with the Mexico Symphony Orchestra in 1934. (Chávez would also premiere El Salón México three years later.) Benny Goodman, the huge entertainer of the 1930s and ’40s, commissioned Copland for a concerto, and he answered with one of the most delightful works of his career. Goodman was a highly respected musician beyond jazz and swing, and Copland presented him with a brilliant piece for the clarinet repertoire. Our show begins with music Copland submitted for a project of 10 fanfares commissioned during the war by Eugene Goossens, conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

The music is ubiquitous, but let the Fanfare for the Common Man be a blazing reminder of the power, the individuality, the scope, and, yes, the greatness of Aaron Copland. Share this: Fanfare for Aaron Copland | Arts and Entertainment | BBC World Service Wednesday 08 November, 2000 Fanfare for Aaron Copland Referred to as 'The Dean of American Music' and 'the spiritual father of every American composer working today', Aaron Copland is undoubtedly America's most celebrated composer. His music, which includes classics such as the Fanfare For The Common Man and the Appalachian Spring suite, are accessible in style and capture the heart of America. In death, as in life, Copland continues to be celebrated at every milestone. To mark the centenary of his birth, Music Review takes a look at the work of one of the 20th century's greatest composers. Listen to the first part of The Copland Years here The mood of America When a young Aaron Copland told his parents that he wanted to study harmony they laughed. 'How will you make money?', they asked. 'I can always play the piano in a moving picture theatre', he replied.

Luckily for Copland, and the waiting world, his parents agreed to send him to music school. Later the closest time that Copland would get to play in a cinema was when he composed the scores for films such as Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and Thornton Wilder's Our Town. As a composer he experimented with ballets, classicism, film scores and even jazz. Always with the ability to predict the mood of America, Copland once said of his work, 'The idea of reflecting our country in music was very attractive to me. Debussy was not just a composer, he was a French composer, different from Beethoven or Brahms, who were German. We in America had not quite succeeded in reflecting our country in serious music.' From humble beginnings In the late 19th century, Harris Copland emigrated to America from Lithuania and quickly set up home in Brooklyn with his wife, Sarah. They ran a shop and in 1900 became the proud parents of a son named Aaron, the first of five children.

Despite having no musical background, Aaron Copland had written a fragment of a song for his mother when he was eight years old, had begged his sister to teach him how to play piano and by 14 he had completed his first song, entitled Lola. In the words of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's conductor, Leonard Slatkin: 'Copland always seems to know what note comes next. This sense of inevitability is a gift granted to only a few.' Having studied with the conservative Rubin Goldmark, in 1920 Copland travelled to Paris to become the first of a long line of American composers to to be taught by the avant -garde Nadia Boulanger. She encouraged him to travel to Austria and Germany where he became influenced by European styles. In 1925 Serge Koussevitzky conducted the first performance of Copland's Music for Theatre. In the same year, with Boulanger as solo organist, Walter Damrosch conducted his Organ Symphony. In 1926 Koussevitzky conducted his Piano Concerto, it followed in the jazzy style of his other work and impressed audiences who strove to make their cities equal to the fashionable Parisian arts scene.

By the early 1930s Copland had become involved with promoting the work of contemporary musicians. Amongst his acquaintances was the Mexican Carlos Chávez who invited Copland on a trip to Mexico, where he would go on to write his lively and popular El Salón Mexicó in 1932. 'Not everybody reads the deepest books, so why shouldn't that same thing apply to music? To be able to sit through a 40-minute symphony and be able to connect the first note with the last in your mind is not a gift everyone has.' - Aaron Copland Accessible style On returning to New York Copland began to reflect on the style of his work. Both socially and politically America was struggling, and Copland sought to make his work more accessible. Of this time he wrote: 'What I was trying for in the simpler works was only partly a larger audience. I sought a homespun musical idiom, a musical naturalness that we have badly needed.' Copland drew on simple elements of American values and history. Among his classical frameworks he weaved folk music and traditional hymns.

In his 'ballet-western', entitled Billy The Kid, he used cowboy songs and reflected on the wide open spaces of the prairies. He would later compare the the isolation of New York City life to the solitude of the great plains. In 1942 he openly demonstrated his nationalism when he was invited to write A Lincoln Portrait. He had already been involved with film scores and saw no reason why his repertoire should not be extended to theatre and radio. Of this period Copland remarked: 'An entirely new public for music had grown up around the radio and record player. It made no sense to me to continue writing as if they did not exist.' Changing direction By the late 1940s Copland had begun to combine his popular and more complex styles and created some of his most well known pieces. His Third Symphony included a version of the Fanfare For The Common Man and audiences of all standings welcomed it; quickly elevating it to the level of a national treasure. However in the 1950s things began to change.

Copland became preoccupied with more complex works, his political leaning was questioned by Senator McCarthy's Un -American Activities Committee and despite some support, critics began to recognise a confusion in his work which in turn baffled audiences. Copland retired from composing in the 1970s and instead took to conducting. In his later years he was to claim that conducting was his 'late passion'. Despite his obvious talent his heart still lay with composing. In an interview marking his 75th birthday he commented: 'I began by wanting to be a composer, and now, 50 years later, I still want to be a composer. It's an ever-present preoccupation, the idea that I am putting down music that will tell people 100 years hence what it was like to be alive now, here in the United States.' Copland's contribution Having suffered from Alzheimer's Disease and two strokes, Aaron Copland died in December 1990. Reflecting Copland's contribution both to America and to the world of music, USA Today's obituary stated: 'Aaron Copland gave American music its identity.

While previous US composers sounded like their European elders, Copland broke free and created a sound full of rambunctious rhythms, rugged folk-influenced melodies and widely-spaced harmonies that suggested a land of endless expanse and limitless possibilities.'

Question: Which 20th century composer wrote Fanfare for the Common Man?
Answer: AARON COPELAND